We've been busy lately, so here are some quick notes until we get the time to sit down and pound out a proper blog entry.
Facebook. In case you haven't found it, we also have a page on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/EfCubed. You can see some other photos there; drop us a line; or make a suggestion for a blog topic you'd like to see. If you're a Facebook user, do us a favor and "Like" our site there. Thanks. You can also drop us a line here using the "Contact" menu on the line above this entry. Or you can leave them in the "Comments" after any blog entry.

Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite 5 is selling now; it ships by mid-May. We've both already ordered our upgrades. I was a beta-tester for the new CS5, and this is a major upgrade. There are improvements in mask building. cloning, high dynamic range (HDR), and many more. You can see many of these features illustrated on Adobe TV. As NAPP members (link above on "Blogroll"), we also recommend you go there for information. They have a CS5 page with videos and information here. We'll show some of the new features in the future.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 is out in a public beta. This program should be released this summer, but no date has been set, yet. You can download a copy to try at Adobe Labs. There are lots of improvements in the RAW converter, noise reduction, and you can now catalog video clips. Remember, beta versions still have some rough edges and all the features are not finalized before the public release of the commercial product, so you should only use it for testing with copies of your images. Usually, Adobe also puts in some features in the final product that aren't inside the beta.

If you're an Apple Aperture user, they have released Aperture 3. It has new presets; new organization capabilities using faces and places; helps create photobooks that can be printed; and also has basic video handling. They advertise more than 200 new features. I don't use this Lightroom competitor, but many like it as much as I like Lightroom. You can get a free trial version of it here.

Travel. We're both headed off on photo expeditions in the coming months that should yield a few interesting photos: Mark is going to Greece; and Roger, Alaska. We'll post some of the photos here and on Facebook.

I'll close with an old photo from my film days. This was one of my first sales - important to a young soldier, trying to earn extra money to feed the family. Monique was a classmate at the Defense Language School. She and her boyfriend liked this one.